Oven Bottom Cakes are flat-breads, originally baked at a lower temperature at the bottom of an oven. The texture of the bread is traditionally quite compacted and chewy.
There are a range of names for these flat-breads in the North of England, including ‘Scufflers’, ‘Stotties’, Stotty Cakes, ‘Flatties’, and Barm Cakes. ‘Scufflers’ are traditionally shaped in rounds, dusted lightly with flour when baked, and split into triangles.
Here’s a recipe from the Mary Hanson Moore cookbook of traditional regional recipes.
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb (675 g) strong white flour
- Half-ounce fresh yeast (preferred) or 1 teaspoon dried yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 4 oz (113 g) lard (or ‘Trex’ could be used as a lighter substitute)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- Three-quarters of a pint (400 ml/15 fl oz) lukewarm water
Method
- Mix the flour, dried yeast, sugar and salt in a big bowl. If using fresh yeast, cream it with the sugar and a little of the water then add it to the flour and salt.
- Mix to a smooth dough with the rest of the water, knead, then leave to rise.
- Knock it back when risen.
- Cut the lard into small pieces and press these into the dough.
- Shape the dough into one big, or two smaller, flat rounds, leaving it lumpy with the lard.
- Put on to a greased baking sheet and leave to prove.
- When the dough has almost doubled in size, coat it with beaten egg, if you would like to see a darker colour, and bake it initially for 10 minutes on the bottom of a pre-heated oven at 425 F/mark 7/220 C, then reduce the temperature to 375 F/gas mark 5/190 C and bake for another 20-35 minutes (depending on whether you have cooked one large or two small loaves) until the bread reaches a golden colour. Test to see it is cooked by tapping the bottom of the bread – if it sounds hollow you should be in business!
Source: Mary Hanson Moore (1980) A Yorkshire Cookbook. Published by David & Charles.
9 Responses to Oven Bottom Cakes
The cafe I used to work at used to sell these as belly busters, a breakfast in a oven cake.
We used to buy one each from Kelly’s bakery on Harehills parade to take on all day hikes on the moors. One snowy Easter Monday we found half a dozen kids who had set off from Ilkley in the wrong clothes huddled behind a rock. We had enough food and spare clothes to get them back to safety – those oven bottom cakes with all the ham and cheese we’d put inside them were literally life savers that day. Sixty years later I’m just about to put a batch on my cast iron oven floor with a lot of water between me and Yorkshire
Lovely memories, Kathryn, thank you.
I’ve been looking for a recipe for years! I know Mum made these all the time and we loved them, but she never had a recipe! Thank you so much!!!!
A pleasure!
That is far too much lard at 16% of the flour weight. Quarter it and you will have a much better crumb. Too much fat coats the gluten and stops it forming a gluten network.
Using butter is a good way to go too just up it to 38g. That is what Lancashire home bakers used. They would also use full milk at approx. one third of the liquid. Yes, oven bottoms are from Lancashire, not Yorkshire.
I hope this is helpful.
It’s nice to see someone keeping the idea alive.
From an old Lancashire home baker who remembered these from childhood and whose mother baked them.
In Durham we called them Oven Bottom Squatties
Think I must be doing something wrong. I end up with a lovely looking flatcake but its sittingin a pool of lard and the base is therefore undercooked.
Any thoughts?
See Kevin’s comments below. He suggests reducing the lard content by half, or using butter up to 38g. I assume the oven temperature was right, and that the oven was well-preheated beforehand?